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Iñaki Sorginak
Iñaki Sorginak, also known by the alias of Salazar Aragon, is a Basque-born pirate of great renown, and the current Pirate Lord of Madagascar, as well as the captain of the Basilisk. He was born to a Basque witch and an unnamed man she claimed to be a demon. He has traveled the world, claiming to be "Basque-born, Turk-raised, and China-taught". After he was driven out of his homeland by the witch hunts, he served under an Ottoman captain, and served for the Empire in the war in exchange for immunity, but was betrayed, and took up piracy again, becoming vehemently opposed to government, and became so known for his ferocity that he became a Pirate Lord, with the ultimate goal of tearing down the governments that have hunted him. Appearance Iñaki has matted brown-black hair which falls to the base of his neck, and blue-gray eyes. He has a light beard that covers the lower half of his face, including a mustache. He's fairly tall, standing above most, but not a giant. He sometimes wears chain-mail, which he keeps for battle, but more commonly wears shredded finery, silk with tears in the sleeves and fine shirts left unbuttoned, as well as a number of silk bandanas or kerchiefs, which he states he wears in mockery of nobles, though some of them are laced with poison. At his side,in a purposefully grotesque obsidian sword holder, he wears a fine metal claymore, with a basket hilt and a backsword blade. His favored weapon, however, is the massive Zweihänder he wears vertically on his back. He keeps a pet harpy eagle with him, and wears a flintlock on him at all times. Personality A primary feature of Iñaki's personality is that he is always trying to prove something, going to great lengths to prove himself, or at times disguise himself as, the better person. He will make himself stomach something he disagrees with, using the one hand to purport his own righteousness and try to show another up, but with his other hand will strike them down in vengeance. Iñaki will not suffer offenses to himself, and often acts back ferociously in defense of his damaged pride, or will embark on long commitments to prove himself the "bigger man", or to disprove the words that harmed his pride. Yet he contradicts himself with his other actions, and seeks to repair the wounds even as he opens new ones, boiling up from his hatred of being disgraced. He tries to pretend to bear it, in order to save face, but never forgets. Yet he drinks in the adoration of others and basks in it, enjoying being at the center of his own world, but on the peripherals, far removed, of the other, the larger world. He desires within his heart to be looked up to, adored, and loved, though he has little enough to give for himself, and seeks to prove himself right, and to find himself a good person. In his quest to prove himself better than the nobles he despises, and as he sees as befitting a "pirate noble", Iñaki has made himself into a mockery of everything he knows. He calls himself a "caricature of a noble, of a good and honest and honorable man", pretending to be a highborn or honor-bound lord, yet making sure to throw in the subtlest differences, or to break the illusion when he feels it is right. He claims to have been "created by some dark god in mockery of life", to show the imperfections of all humanity. He makes a farce of the ways of 'civilized people'; he shows no mercy to nobles, and laughs bitingly at their ways. He shows the flaws of nobility and society through an exaggerated and cruel mimicry of their mannerisms, and displays to them a false chivalry, much as they once did to him. Iñaki, throughout all of his hardships and dark turns of personality, and in spite of his viciousness and hatred of nobles, and seeming lack of love, can be chivalrous at times, and is noble in a sense, in his own way honorable as most any other man. He laughs at the feigned honor of nobles, and shows nothing but disdain for nobles who consider themselves honorable, but put their own honor and duty before others, and don't realize the decay of their comrades, such as the man who was sent to kill him, and took away everything he loved for the sake of the noble's precious honor. Although, he does show respect for those who seem to surpass the shallowness he sees in these lives. He has been known to spare smallfolk or nobles he sees as genuine and knowing, both aware of the lack of true nobility in their comrades, and yet still able to hold to their values. Others, however, he laughs at, and considers vows to nobles who don't bother to think that others might place value in a sworn word to be forfeit, while he, despite all his flaws, keeps his vows to others. Iñaki follows his own perspective on his duty at nearly all moments, and while he will show mercy if need be, leaving men without punishment as hard as his duty decrees, he never throws it aside, and has been seen to force himself to go against his own will in matters of honor. However, he is brutally honorable, destroying those who have fallen low in his eyes, and has perfect justification for his atrocities. He sees honor as a war-like thing, and takes no harm to his honor by killing in fulfillment of an oath of vengeance, or such 'compromises' of nobility. He has a burning passion against government and false nobles, as well as any persecutive civilization, and his ultimate goal is to bring low the governments and empires that did the same to him, especially the collapse of the Ottoman Empire which took his life from him. Background Iñaki's mother was a Basque witch, part of a coven known as an Akelarre, who lived in the town of Zugarramurdi. On the night of his birth, a night considered by the Akelarre to be the day when darkness pressed most closely against the border between their world and earth, the witches met at Akelarrenlezea, a sacred cave. To harness the spirits, the witches believed that they needed a human body to store the spirits in, and Iñaki's mother, having boasted that she had been visited by the demon who kept the cavern, the passage to the next world, was selected as sacrifice. She was sewn within the corpse of a black goat, voluntarily, and sent into the river which entered the deep gorge, known as the cave of the witches. The river wound threw many treacherous passes, and Iñaki's mother was torn out of the goatskin, drowning in the deep and treacherous river. When the river emerged at the place of the witches' normal hideout, however, the goat emerged, and from the hole in its belly fell an unharmed child, Iñaki. Shocked by the child, when his mother had not seemed pregnant, the witches' took the opinion that his mother truly had been visited by the iratxoak, or demon, that guarded the passageway between worlds, and that he was the father of the child. He was raised as a prince, the skin of the black goat, horns and all, kept as a cloak for him, and became known as a half-demon sorcerer, the leader of a fearsome coven, but grew tired of the facade, not believing the rumors of his father himself. When the Basque witch hunts began, he fought against them, but his followers were slaughtered, and he left the country, swearing death upon the government who had betrayed him. During this time, Iñaki traveled to exotic empires, learning the illegal trades, as well as sailing. He served for a dozen years under an Ottoman pirate, and from him learned the trade, traveling the world. He referred to himself as multicultural, calling himself "Basque-born, Turk-raised, and China-taught", showing his great respect for other cultures, and the captain was as a father to him. On a voyage to China, he learned of the many Oriental innovations with gunpowder, learning almost by heart the treatise on its uses, the Huolongjing, or Fire Dragon Manual. He acquitted himself as a notable pirate in the Fourth Russo-Ottoman War, his ship hired as a privateering vessel, in exchange for absolution of its crew's crimes. They became known as the most efficient privateers, but the Ottoman Empire ground its teeth at letting the famed crew roam free. At the end of the war, after their usefulness had died out, the captain went to collect the papers of absolution, but was betrayed, and executed, though the crew, due to lack of evidence that any but the captain had committed the worst of the atrocities, was imprisoned for three years and then released, and Iñaki was given lands and a lordship for his service. Iñaki settled down, marrying and begetting a son. However, during the war, he had sold several captured Russians to slavers, rather than surrender them to the Empire's justice, and one of the more "honorable" nobles discovered this, holding it as a betrayal of contract. Iñaki plead for mercy, but he was stripped of his lands, and would have been arrested and executed had he not fled before the soldiers arrived, his wife and newborn child leaving him. He discovered the rest of the crew, who had once again began piracy, and were outlaws, and became their captain for a short while. The crew, wishing to yet gain their own absolution, attempted to barter Iñaki to the government for it. However, discovering the plan, Iñaki fled, having stolen from the crew the gathered manuscripts of Piri Reis, a famed navigator whose maps and documents had fallen into the captain's hands. He then fled to southern Africa, gathering followers, and enraging the government enough with his attacks that they agreed to surrender the crew, whom they had been tracking themselves, to his justice if he would give himself up. He agreed, but knew that they would expect him to break his word, and did not wait for a trap to be laid. Rather, he deduced from where he had been told to meet them where the crew must be hiding, and assaulted them with his own crew, butchering them and taking their ship, which he would add to from the remains of ships he wrecked. He became a vehement opposition of the government, his passion so well known that he became a Pirate Lord, gaining a massive bounty in the Ottoman Empire, and stating that he has bounties out for him in Russia and Spain as well, due to his actions there in his youth. Abilities Skilled in combat, Iñaki was known for his ruthlessness, both in battle and stategically, showing little mercy to his enemies, and was notable for his unwillingness to let an enemy escape. He carries with him a flintlock pistol, for use at longer ranges or when attacking across the water, as well as a basket-hilted claymore, and a zweihänder, a massive two handed blade that he keeps strapped to his back. The claymore he uses commonly when he wishes to display skill, or when beginning fights in a "gentlemanly manner", acting like it's a duel. When he is serious, after he decides to end the facade, or in more open warfare, he turns to the zweihänder, his preferred weapon, which he is able to wield with such proficiency that the terrifying weapon, nearly seven feet, is said to have once decapitated multiple men in a single stroke. Despite his destructive sword and skill, Iñaki is amply supplied in two traits. The first is strength, for which he is known most prominently. He is considered dangerous by the Ottoman Empire even unarmed, due to his great strength, which has been called "like nothing human" by an acquaintance. He is able to wield his zweihänder, a weapon typically requiring a strong man to carry two-handed, and larger even than most of its kind, in a single hand, albeit for only a brief few strokes at the most, and is whispered to have once strangled a two-headed hydra, one neck with each hand. His other beneficial trait is his resourcefulness, which is less weighted in stories, but equally dangerous in a battle. He takes advantage of anything at his disposal, and is unorthodox in his methods, arming his ships with rockets in place of more cannons. Behind the Scenes Iñaki's appearance is based on that of Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. His name means "Ignatius the Witch" or "Ignatius the Sorceror" in the Basque language. Category:Male Category:Pirates Category:Thepantheon Category:Pirate Lords